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Ideas of the Early Sex Education Movement in America, 1890–1920

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Bryan Strong
Bryan Strong*
Affiliation:
Peace Studies Program at Stanford University
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Extract

Toward the end of the nineteenth century American sexual attitudes were beginning to undergo a fundamental alteration, for the dominant sexual ideology of sex as restraint was being challenged increasingly by the hitherto radical doctrine of sex as pleasure. The implications of this change in ideology extended far beyond the simple gratification of a temporal impulse to the very formation of character and the organization of society, for, as Freud wrote, the manner in which an individual responds to sexuality is often “a prototype for the whole of his other modes of reaction to life.” In turn, the nature of society is significantly influenced according to whether society chooses to resolve the conflict between Eros and Ananke by the repression, renunciation, or acceptance of sexuality.

Type
Research Article
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , Summer 1972 , pp. 129 - 161
Copyright
Copyright © 1972 by New York University 

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References

Notes

1. Freud, Sigmund, “‘Civilized’ Sexual Morality and Modern Nervousness,” in Rieff, Philip, ed., Freud: Sexuality and the Psychology of Love (New York, 1968), p. 35. Freud, Sigmund, Civilization and Its Discontents (New York, 1962), chap. 3. Cf. Marcuse, Herbert, Eros and Civilization (New York, 1955), chaps. 3, 4, and 6; Reich, Wilhelm, The Discovery of the Orgone: The Function of the Orgasm (New York, 1970), chap. 6; and Robinson, Paul, The Freudian Left (New York, 1969), esp. chapters on Reich and Marcuse. It should be pointed out that the essay which follows is written from the perspective that attitudes are not only linked but inseparable from biological impulses and that, as Mills and Gerth wrote, the “internalization of social values and objectives gives direction to impulses and, to some extent, even sets the intensity of these impulses.” Wright Mills, C. and Gerth, Hans, Character and Social Structure (New York, 1964), p. 46.Google Scholar

2. Lewis, Dio, Chastity: or, Our Secret Sins (New York, 1874), p. 316. The most impressive work to date relating sex to politics remains Laswell's, Harold, Psychopathology and Politics (New York, 1969), which was first published in 1930. Rattray, Gordon, Taylor's Sex in History (New York, 1954) is an interesting attempt relating sex to historical epochs. Although there are a few doctoral dissertations on American sexuality, the best of which is probably David Pivar's “The Social Purity Movement” (Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1965), they provide little insight. Oscar Handlin's essay entitled “The Horror” in his Race and Nationality in American Life (New York, 1957) is the best introduction, albeit short, to nineteenth-century sexuality in America. Davis, David Brion’ Homicide in American Fiction, 1798–1860 (Ithaca, 1968) relates sex to crime in the American mind.Google Scholar

3. John Cowan, M.D., The Science of a New Life (New York, 1870), pp. 90–92; Newton, Alonzo, as quoted in Stockham, Alice, Tokology: A Book for Every Woman (Chicago, 1885 [1st ed. 1883]), pp. 144–45. Cf. Sheppard, E. R., True Manhood (Chicago, 1888), p. 251. The remarkable similarities between nineteenth-century ideas concerning the reabsorption of semen and Freud's theory of sublimation suggest that Freud's ideas regarding sublimation, for which he advanced little evidence except a priori reasoning, may have been derived from popular medicine. This is certainly true of Nietzsche who heretofore had been considered Freud's precursor in the theory of sublimation. Nietzsche had written in 1880–1881: “The reabsorption of semen by the blood is the strongest nourishment and, perhaps more than any other factor, it prompts the stimulus of power, the unrest of all forces toward the overcoming of resistances, the thirst for contradiction and resistance. The feeling of power has so far mounted highest in abstinent priests and hermits….” Nietzsche, Friedrich, “Notes,” in Kaufmann, Walter, ed., The Portable Nietzsche (New York, 1960), p. 75.Google Scholar

4. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, “Wealth“ in The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (New York, n.d.), 3: 84. Cowan, , Science, p. 127. Cf. Beecher, Henry Ward, Norwood, or Village Life in New England (New York, 1868), p. 158.Google Scholar

5. Kellogg, J. H., Ladies’ Guide in Health and Disease (Battle Creek, Michigan, 1902 [1st ed. 1882]), p. 381; cf. Lewis, Chastity, p. 315. James, Henry, “Is Marriage Holy?” Atlantic Monthly, 25 (March 1870), 364.Google Scholar

6. Taylor, Walter C., A Physician's Counsels to Woman, in Health and Disease (Springfield, Mass., 1871), pp. 108–10. Lewis, , Chastity, p. 313. Stowe, Harriet Beecher, to Livermore, Mary A., circa 1868, as quoted in Pivar, “The Social Purity Movement,” p. 128. Sheppard, , True Manhood, p. 232.Google Scholar

7. Trail, R. T., M.D., Home-Treatment for Sexual Abuses. A Practical Treatise (New York, 1853), p. 58. Cowan, , Science, p. 69; cf. Kellogg, , Ladies’ Guide, p. 337.Google Scholar

8. Cf. Beecher, Henry Ward, Lectures to Young Men on Various Important Subjects (New York, 1853 [1st ed. 1844]), pp. 36–37.Google Scholar

9. Drake, Emma, What a Young Wife Ought to Know (Philadelphia, 1901), p. 91. Cf. Sheppard, , True Manhood, p. 258; Kellogg, , Ladies’ Guide, p. 82.Google Scholar

10. During most of the nineteenth century there was no wholly effective prophylactic or contraceptive device. Most marriage manuals that did offer suggestions on birth control detailed an erroneous form of the rhythm method that was worse than ineffective since it maintained that the safest period for making love was between the twelfth and eighteenth days following menstruation. This is the time, of course, in which conception is most likely to occur. It is important to note that although the birth rates had steadily declined from the early part of the nineteenth century, the earliest decline can probably be attributed to abstinence, withdrawal, or karezza, rather than to artificial devices. If artificial devices had not been introduced on a widespread basis, the birth-rate levels would have probably reached a certain plateau and remained on that level. The change in contraceptive techniques is significant not only in terms of permitting greater control over conception but in its psychological ramifications. The impact of the older methods on personality are difficult to document, but Freud's suggestions are illuminating. In reference to abstinence, he writes: “… a man who abstains, for whatever reasons, from satisfying his strong sexual instinct, will also assume a conciliatory and resigned attitude in other paths of life, rather than a powerfully active one.” In another essay he suggests that withdrawal or karezza are important factors in the origin of anxiety-neuroses. Cf. Freud, Sigmund, “‘Civilized’ Sexual Morality and Modern Nervousness“ and “My Views on the Part Played by Sexuality in the Aetiology of the Neuroses,” in Rieff, , ed., Freud. Taylor, Robert W., A.M., M.D., Practical Treatise on Sexual Disorders of the Male and Female (New York, 1897), pp. 302–4.Google Scholar

11. Howard, William L., M.D., Facts for the Married (New York, 1912), p. xii Robinson, William J., Woman, Her Sex and Love Life (New York, 1929 [1st ed. 1917]), pp. 286–87.Google Scholar

12. Kinsey, Alfred, et al., Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (New York, 1969), p. 403.Google Scholar

13. Talmey, B. S., M.D., Genesis: A Manual for the Instruction of Children in Matters Sexual (New York, 1910), p. 51; Marden, Orison Sweet, The Crime of Silence (New York, 1915), p. 41.Google Scholar

14. Drake, , Young Wife, p. 37; Marden, , Crime of Silence, p. 26; Foster, William, “The Social Emergency,“ Report of the Sex Education Sections of the Fourth International Congress of School Hygiene, The American Federation for Sex Hygiene (New York, 1913), p. 47. This report will hereafter be cited as Report of Sex Education Sections. Google Scholar

15. Most women discovered masturbation from exploring their own genitals, while only 28 percent of the men discovered it in a similar fashion according to Kinsey. He has an interesting comment to make about this dissimilarity. Cf. Kinsey, , Sexual Behavior, p. 138. Talmey, , Genesis, p. 29.Google Scholar

16. De Costa, B. F., “The White Cross,“ in Sheppard, , True Manhood, p. 29. Scammon, Laura, “Knowledge the Preserver of Purity,“ Arena, 8 (November 1893): 702; Drake, , Young Wife, p. 38; Morrow, Prince, “The Teaching of Sex Hygiene,” Good Housekeeping Magazine (March 1912), p. 406.Google Scholar

17. Anonymous, A Mother, “Sex Education in the Public Schools,” Good Housekeeping Magazine (September 1911), p. 383. Anonymous, “Personal Experiences of Mothers: How I Told My Children, The Experience of a Mother of Six,” Ladies Home Journal (May 1912), p. 28. Cabot, Hugh, “Education Versus Punishment as a Remedy for Social Evils,“ Report of Sex Education Sections, p. 13; Eliot, Charles W., “Public Opinion and Sex Hygiene,“ Report of Sex Education Sections, p. 18; United States Public Health Service, “The Problem of Sex Education in Schools” (Washington, D.C., 1919), p. 9.Google Scholar

18. Chapman, Rose Wood-Allen, “How Shall I Tell My Child? A Little Talk as Mother with Mother,“ Ladies Home Journal 27 (September 1910), 54; Keyes, Edward L., M.D., “If Education Upon Sexual Matters Is To Be Offered to Youth, What Should Be Its Nature and Scope, and at What Age Should It Commence,” New York Medical Journal (February 10, 1906), p. 274.Google Scholar

19. Chapman, Rose Wood-Allen, “How Shall I Tell My Child?“ Ladies Home Journal (May 1910), p. 54; Garrett, Laura, “Some Methods of Teaching Sex Hygiene,” Report of the Sex Education Sections, pp. 57 and 55.Google Scholar

20. United States Public Health Service, “The Place of Sex Education in Biology and General Science,” V.D. Bulletin No. 41 (Washington, 1919), p. 15. Bigelow, Maurice, Sex Education (New York, 1916), p. 182; Eliot, , “Public Opinion and Sex Hygiene,” p. 17, cf. “Discussion,” Report of Sex Education Sections, p. 91. Marden, , Crime of Silence, p. 303; Talmey, , Genesis, p. 135; Bigelow, , Sex Education, p. 144.Google Scholar

21. Bigelow, , Sex Education, pp. 15–16; Eliot, “Public Opinion and Sex Hygiene,” p. 18. Cf. United States Public Health Service, “Keeping Fit: An Exhibit for Older Boys and Young Men,” V.D. Pamphlet No. 45 (Washington, D.C., 1919), which contains an illustrative poster that declares “Keep Smutty Stories, Suggestive Pictures and All Unclean Thoughts Out of Your Mind by Keeping It Full of Good Thoughts.”Google Scholar

22. Kofoid, C. A., “Instruction of Teachers in Sex Hygiene,“ First Annual Report, American Social Hygiene Association (New York, 1914), p. 119.Google Scholar

23. Rauschenbusch, Walter, as quoted in Florence Fitch, “What Are Our Social Standards?” Social Hygiene, 1 (September 1915), 560; Marden, , Crime of Silence, p. 206; Cabot, “Education Versus Punishment”; Hall, Winfield Schott, “The Relation of Education in Sex to Race Betterment,” Social Hygiene, 1 (December 1914), 48. John Stokes, M.D., on the other hand, “was especially interested in estimating the value of fear of infection as a deterrent” and discovered to his dismay that knowledge of venereal disease was “of very little avail in developing self-restraint.” Stokes, John, “The In-Patient Hospital in the Control and Study of Syphilis,” Social Hygiene, 2 (April 1916), 224. Rugh, C. E., in “Discussion,” First Annual Report, American Social Hygiene Association (New York, 1914), p. 137. Stokes, “The In-Patient Hospital,” p. 225.Google Scholar

24. Bigelow, , Sex Education, p. 177; cf. Valentine, Ferdinand, “Education in Sexual Subjects,“ New York Medical Journal (February 10, 1906), p. 276. Scammon, “Knowledge,” p. 706. Mach, Judge Julian, “What I Have Learned from Hundreds of Girls,” Ladies Home Journal (May 1908), p. 6; Chapman, Rose Wood-Allen, “How Shall I Tell My Child?” Ladies Home Journal (November 1, 1910), p. 60. One author objected to relying upon frigidity as a means of curtailing immorality: “Frigidity cannot be counted upon. Sexual feeling is individual, an unknown quantity, no one can say what might happen when the right personality meets the right opportunity.” Since frigidity did not guarantee chastity, the author suggested chaperonage in the form of police oversight. Smith, Edith, “A Study in Sexual Morality,” Social Hygiene, 2 (October 1916), 543–44. Fitch, “Social Standards?” p. 568.Google Scholar

25. Bigelow, , Sex Education, p. 69. Freud wrote: “The most profound difference between the love life of antiquity and ours lies in the fact that the ancients placed the emphasis on the instinct itself, while we put it on its object. The ancients extolled the instinct and were ready to ennoble through it even an inferior object, while we disparage the activity of the instinct as such and only countenance it on account of the merits of the object.” Freud, Sigmund, “Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex,“ in Brill, A. A., ed., The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud (New York, 1938), p. 563n. Cf. Freud's essay “Contributions to the Psychology of Love,” in Rieff, , ed., Freud, pp. 49–86, for a discussion of the impact of this division on erotic life.Google Scholar

26. Drake, , Young Wife, p. 90; Hetherington, Clark, “Play Leadership in Sex Education,“ Social Hygiene, 1 (1914), 129; cf. Bigelow, Sex Education, p. 75; Wilson, Helen, in discussion, Social Hygiene, 2 (October 1916), 500; Chapman, Rose Wood-Allen, “How Shall I Tell My Child?” Ladies Home Journal (April 1, 1911), p. 66.Google Scholar

27. “Instruction in the Physiology and Hygiene of Sex for Teachers,” Educational Pamphlet No. 2, Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis (New York, 1913), p. 14. The Rev. Arthur Hall, “My Reasons for Believing that Mothers Should Speak Out,” Ladies Home Journal (June 1911), pp. 6, 63.Google Scholar

28. Cf. Kinsey, Alfred, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (Philadelphia, 1948), chap. 14, esp. pp. 511–16 and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, chap. 5, esp. pp. 165–73. Also Ford, Clellan S. and Beach, Frank A., Patterns of Sexual Behavior (New York, 1951), esp. chap. 9.Google Scholar

29. Marden, , Crime of Silence, p. 171; “Instruction in the Physiology and Hygiene of Sex for Teachers,” pp. 19–20; cf. Bigelow, Sex Education, p. 50. The best history of attitudes toward masturbation is Hare, E. H., “Masturbational Insanity: The History of an Idea,“ Journal of Mental Science, 108 (1962), 2–25. Cf. MacDonald, Robert H., “The Frightful Consequences of Onanism: Notes on the History of a Delusion,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 28 (July-September, 1967), 423–31. Kinsey's two studies contain background material, with good bibliographies, on attitudes toward masturbation. Cf. also Comfort, Alex, The Anxiety Makers (London, 1967) for a popular history of sexual taboos.Google Scholar

30. Bigelow, , Sex Education, p. 114.Google Scholar

31. “Instruction in the Physiology and Hygiene of Sex for Teachers,” p. 21. Ibid., p. 63; Smith, Nellie, “The Mother's Reply, A Pamphlet for Mothers,“ Society for Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis (New York, 1914), p. 19; Talmey, , Genesis, p. 63. It was recognized, however, that infants sometimes masturbated. Since it was impossible to argue that in these cases it was learned, doctors and educators argued that masturbation in the very young was caused by irritation around the genitals. They refused to accept the possibility of discovery arising from erotic sensations coming from within the child. Cf. Talmey, , Genesis, p. 41.Google Scholar

32. A similar theory was held in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England and continued to be popular in medical circles in nineteenth-century Europe. Cf. Stone, Lawrence, The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558–1641 (New York, abridged ed.), p. 284, and Wood Ruggles, E., M.D., “The Physician's Relation to the Social Evil,” New York Medical Journal (January 26, 1907), p. 159.Google Scholar

33. Morrow, , “The Teaching of Sex Education,“ p. 406; cf. Woods Hutchinson, M.D., “What Not To Teach Our Children Upon Race Hygiene,“ Good Housekeeping Magazine (April 1912), p. 531. United States Public Health Service, “Manpower,” V.D. Pamphlet No. 6 (Washington, 1919), p. 13; quoted in Robinson, William J., Sexual Problems of Today (New York, 1921), pp. 214–15.Google Scholar

34. Hall, , “The Relation of Education in Sex to Race Betterment,“ p. 74.Google Scholar

35. Bigelow, , Sex Education, p. 102; Morrow, , “The Teaching of Sex Education,“ p. 406. Hall, W. S., thought that the fear of infection was important not only in forming character but also in the “solidification and fortification of character.” Hall, “The Relation of Education in Sex to Race Betterment,” p. 77. Cf. Donald Hooker, M.D., “Social Hygiene — Another Great Social Movement,“ Social Hygiene (January 1916), p. 9.Google Scholar

36. United States Public Health Service, “Come Clean!” (Washington, D.C., 1918), p. 2; New Jersey State Board of Health, “To Girls in Industry about the Enemy at Home” (Trenton, 1919), p. 4. Smith, Andrew, “The Prophylactic Value of Normal Marriage,“ Medical News (June 24, 1905), p. 1164; Thomson, Alec, “The Genito-Urinary Department of the Brooklyn Hospital Dispensary,” Social Hygiene, 2 (January 1916), 107. A number of writers expressed concern over this excessive emphasis on venereal disease. William Robinson, M.D., wrote: “… as a result of the sex hygiene propaganda we now have cases of actual venerophobia, cases afflicted with an obsession that they and those around them are suffering from venereal disease. There may not be the slightest symptom, foundation or excuse for such a belief, but you cannot convince them they are wrong.” Robinson, , Sexual Problems, p. 325.Google Scholar

37. Morrow, , “The Teaching of Sex Education,“ p. 404; Bigelow, , Sex Education, p. 86. Cf. Haller, Mark H., Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (New Brunswick, N.J., 1963), esp. chaps. 4–7.Google Scholar

38. Talmey, , Genesis, p. 12; Young, Ella Flagg, in discussion, Report of Sex Education Sections, p. 73. Cf. Richard Tierney, S.J., “The Catholic Church and the Sex Problem“ in the same report for the Catholic Church's position on sex education. Hall, G. Stanley, American Social Hygiene Association, First Annual Report, p. 73.Google Scholar

39. Allen, Bennett M., Ph.D., in discussion, American Social Hygiene Association, First Annual Report, p. 134; Bigelow, , Sex Education, p. 7.Google Scholar

40. Balliet, Thomas, “Points of Attack in Sex Education,“ Report of Sex Education Sections, p. 34; Bigelow, , Sex Education, p. 6. Cf. Willard, Frances, “Commendation,“ in Sperry, Lyman B., M.D., Confidential Talks with Young Women (Chicago, 1898), n.p. Cf. also Honigmann, John J., “A Cultural Theory of Obscenity,” in DeMartino, Manfred, ed., Sexual Behavior and Personality Characteristics (New York, 1966), pp. 31–53. Beecher, Henry Ward, had praised the English language because it had no middle term to describe sexuality. English “has few words which wear a meaning smile, a courtesan-glance significant of something unexpressed…. We must speak plainly and properly; or else speak by innuendo — which is the devil's language.” Beecher, , Lectures, p. 172. Gerth and Mills discuss the impact in the psychic development of the individual that results from the verbal lag between experience and language in Character and Social Structure, pp. 154–57.Google Scholar

41. Bigelow, , Sex Education, p. 121; Ruggles, “The Physician's Relation to the Social Evil,” p. 160.Google Scholar

42. This suggests that the sex educators were not convinced by their arguments that scientific terminology presented no danger.Google Scholar

43. Bigelow, , Sex Education, pp. 123, 121.Google Scholar

44. United States Public Health Service, “The Problem of Sex Education in the Schools” (Washington, 1919), pp. 12–13. Italics in original. Bigelow, , Sex Education, p. 127.Google Scholar

45. Ibid., p. 109. United States Public Health Service, “The Problem of Sex Education,” p. 19.Google Scholar

46. Davenport, F. I., in discussion, Report of Sex Education Sections, p. 118. Bigelow, however, did not want to tell girls of the existence of the clitoris. Bigelow, , Sex Education, pp. 152–53. Davenport, “Instruction in the Physiology and Hygiene of Sex,” Report of Sex Education Sections, pp. 9–10.Google Scholar

47. United States Public Health Service, “Healthy, Happy Womanhood” (Washington, 1919), p. 9. Cf. B. B. S., Social Hygiene (March 1915), p. 435. Peabody, James, “Sex Education in Home and High School,“ Social Hygiene (July 1916), p. 369. On the other hand, Lee Rainwater suggested that contraception was facilitated by providing a vocabulary with which the husband and wife might discuss sexuality without embarrassment. Thus, inadvertantly, sex education may have encouraged the development of birth control. Cf. And the Poor Get Children (New York, 1967), pp. 20–21.Google Scholar

48. Powell, Lyman, “An Acute Problem for Parents,“ Good Housekeeping Magazine (September 1911), p. 319. The following story was related in Social Hygiene (March 1915), p. 282: “I told her in an allegorical way about the flowers, and the pollen, and the bees, and how the seeds formed. ‘Beautiful!’ softly explained the kindergartner. ‘How did she take it?’ the neighbor asked. ‘She seemed interested and asked if babies came from bees.’”Google Scholar

49. Chapman, Rose Wood-Allen, “How Shall I Tell My Child?“ Ladies Home Journal (May 1910), p. 72; Drake, , Young Wife, p. 222. Chapman, Rose Wood-Allen, “How Shall I Tell My Child?” Ladies Home Journal (July 1910), p. 43; (February 1, 1911), p. 51.Google Scholar

50. Edson, Newell, “Status of Sex Education in High Schools,“ Bureau of Education, Department of the Interior, Bulletin, 1922, no. 14 (Washington, D.C., 1922), pp. 3, 5. It is not clear that college students accepted sex instruction without a grain of salt. Sill, Frederick H., complained: “Ask any man at college what the general opinion is, and he will refer to these courses using terms in the college vernacular I hesitate to repeat…. In one school, a purity club was formed in travesty.” “How Shall We Teach?” Social Hygiene (March 1915), p. 267.Google Scholar

51. Exner, M. J., M.D., “Sex Education by the Young Men's Christian Associations in Universities and Colleges,” Social Hygiene (September 1915), p. 577. This study was expanded into a Y.M.C.A. pamphlet entitled “Problems and Principles of Sex Education: A Study of 948 College Men” (New York, 1918). This is a particularly useful, if one-sided, study of student responses. Kofoid, C. A., “Instruction of Teachers in Sex Hygiene,” First Annual Report, American Social Hygiene Association (New York, 1914), p. 117.Google Scholar